My Ollie pup looks as tired as I feel. photo via sarah.of.a.lesser.god
Let me preface this post by saying: I have not slept since waking up Wednesday morning, well over 24 hours ago. So this may be a bit nonsensical. You have been warned.
Here’s the thing: your brain starts playing weird little tricks on you when you’re sleep-deprived. Like instructing you to have about 25 Doritos in less than 60 seconds even though it will make you feel sick and heartburn-y, or urging you to watch Bridget Jones’ Diary. The truth is that I didn’t even know I owned that movie until earlier this morning. I had seen it, to be sure, but I’m not sure where the copy in my apartment came from. My tastes in Renee Zellweger comedies pretty much only cover Nurse Betty, but I decided to give it a whirl because — at 9:30 a.m. and after nine hours of watching movies I’d seen a million times — I thought maybe this would be something fun. Clearly not. I got about ten minutes into it before even my sleep-addled malfunctioning cerebral cortex gave up. The moment Hugh Grant’s character said (or wrote in an email), “P.S., like your tits in that top”, I was popping the eject button and reaching for my copy of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (again).
At this point, you may be wondering why the fuck I stayed up all night torturing myself by watching romantic comedies. (Apologies to those who actually enjoy the genre.) Or you may be wondering why I’m writing a whole post about it. The thing is that I don’t really have insomnia, not in the strict definition of someone being unable to sleep. What I grapple with is an unwillingness to sleep. It’s at this point where I brace for the questions of why I simply refuse to turn off my lights and laptop and maybe take a Tylenol PM, because the truth is that my answer won’t make any sense, unless someone can relate to living with either manic-depression or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (or, in my case, both).
What happens a lot in my case is that I will get home semi-late, like I did last night. My class ends at 10 p.m. and by the time I’ve stepped on the uptown subway to get home, I’ve decided that I will refuse sleep for as long as possible and hopefully for the entire night. I have reasons for this, reasons that seem eminently sensible in the short term even though there’s a huge part of my consciousness flashing a red warning sign to try and stop me from doing this yet again. My reasons are neatly organized into three categories:
1- I have so much work to do! So much fun stuff I want to do! I’ll just make sure I don’t lose a minute of my time sleeping when I could be working.
2- I have been having the kinds of bad dreams that really screw with your head, and they sometimes override my sleep meds. So better safe than sorry, right? Skip the sleep meds, skip the sleep, skip the nightmares.
3- I have energy to burn and why let it go to waste?
There you have the trifecta of OCD, depression, and mania. I was diagnosed with OCD when I was seventeen, and I honestly just laughed when my doctor told me because I had known that about myself for years. Nor were my parents surprised, not after they had watched me spend my childhood free time compulsively making lists of words from the dictionary or names from the gigantic Manhattan phone book. By the time I was 13, I had moved on to generating my own random list of 100 girls names, and each and every day I would methodically replot every one of the names along the 100-point spectrum according to a system of mathematical probability. When the therapist explained that was called OCD, I just nodded and wondered why anyone would think it’s a big deal.
But it is a big deal. It’s been so crippling that I had to go on medical leave from college eight years ago because all I did all day was skip classes and write lists. I don’t have the kind of OCD that most people think of when they hear of the disorder: that repetitive hand washing germophobe variety made so famous by Howard Hughes and the Jack Nicholson character in As Good As It Gets. Mine is all about a numerical system, one that I like to pretend I have power over. And it gives me a false sense of power in a life where things often seem to come out of nowhere and upend your sense of self and purpose. It frequently reaches a point at which I wonder if I would have any self or purpose without the OCD. It’s been my companion for a good 20 of my nearly 28 years, and I have a long-running feud with my therapist because I don’t want to take any meds that would lessen my OCD.
So instead I stay up all night, several nights a month now, plying myself awake with coffee and Diet Coke even as my body and mind scream for me to just lie the fuck down and shut off my mind. But I won’t even turn off my laptop, instead staying up watching movies I have seen literally 60 times because it’s safe and feels like I have a handle on the situation. Lying in bed in the dark without my rituals, and with only my own mind for comfort, is really fucking scary to me. My mind races really fast; even when I’m engaged in full conversations with other people, my thoughts are still spinning off in at least two other directions. This is when things segue into mania.
I rarely have manic episodes, but it’s never pleasant when I do. I’m currently in the middle of one, and at least glad that I’m able to recognize it and seek treatment for it. (And I’m grateful that I have the privilege of receiving treatment.) Manic-depressiveness runs in both sides of my families, so it predictably hit me like a sledgehammer. The first time I was manic, I really just thought it was genuine happiness. The problem is that it doesn’t last, and when I’ve crashed in the past, I’ve just felt like an idiot for mistaking mania with happiness. I’m now doing what’s called “rapid-cycling”, where I go from severe depression to severe mania in the span of days rather than months. I know that a great deal of this is due to a fairly devastating trauma I experienced earlier this year, but that doesn’t mean I can simply exercise my rational mind and tell my mania or depression, “look, you’re in therapy! The pain from the trauma might pass in time! Give it a rest!” My rational mind and my manic-depression don’t like one another anyway, and I doubt this hypothetical cerebral civil war would somehow stop me from pulling all-nighters.
When all else fails and I need something to make me feel anchored to my mind, I still have my little numerical algorithms. They tell me which coffee cup to use, which pair of jeans to wear, which DVD to watch, which flavor of pizza to order. And yet, that somehow feels like control. Rationally, I know that it’s not control, it’s being controlled. It’s very similar to my issues with anorexia, and the two really tie together because of the control issue. I’ve used my mathematical system to determine exactly how often I can take a bite of food (approximately once every 10 minutes) or even a sip of my soda (once every 15 minutes) or coffee (approximately once every 6 minutes).
There’s no free will in the system, but that’s okay for some part of my brain, because I wouldn’t trust my judgment if allowed to indulge my free will. This is why dining with even my closest friends and family can be very upsetting to me: there is no way I can subtly look at my watch to figure out the equation that I need to generate the math sequence. The sequence is entirely self-devised and goes something like this:
Look at your watch approximately but not exactly every two minutes.
Food is determined by the 1-in-5 system. Today is June 4. If I look at my watch and the SECOND HAND lands on a number where the last digit is either 4 or 9, then I am allowed to take a bite of food.
Drink is determined by the 1-in-3 system. Because 4 is not a multiple of 3, but is one greater than a multiple of 3 (in this case, 3 itself), I can only take sips if the SECOND HAND lands on a number that is one greater than any multiple of three. So, if my watch lands on 57, I can’t take a sip. If it lands on 58, I’m good to go.
Yes, I am in therapy. Yes, I am on anti-depressants and a mood-stabilizer. Yes, I butt heads constantly with my therapists because a huge part of me wants to be left alone with these disorders because I feel like they’re as much a part of me as my height or my freckles. The thought of having free time that I couldn’t fill with making those lists of names every day (oh yes, I still do it even fifteen years after the tradition started) is enough to send my spiraling into a genuine panic attack. To be honest, just writing this post gave me one of those panic attacks.
But I’m not crazy. I’m human. I have my “issues” — as do we all. I suppose I could just bury them deep down and pretend they don’t exist, but I don’t know what purpose that would serve. If someone wants to think I’m a freak for struggling with this, then I don’t particularly care to be friends with that person. Hopefully, someone else with a misunderstood disorder might read this and feel the same way: that living with these kinds of disorders should never be cause for shame or stigmatization, no matter how “weird” your specific symptoms may be. I’ve been famously secretive about just what my OCD symptoms have been in the past (I don’t think any of the Harpies knew the details about the lists and the mathematical sequences), so writing this post was a huge leap of faith. Regardless of the reception, I’m glad I took the risk.
There is a new show on A&E called “Obsessed” that features real-life people suffering from OCD as they go through CBT. I’ve only watched one episode so far, and the producers definitely milk some of the more dramatic moments for TV…but so far I feel like it’s well done. You may want to check it out: http://www.aetv.com/obsessed.
Also, I don’t think I have full-blown OCD, but I definitely have OCD tendencies that impact my job as a data analyst/programmer. If I weren’t on Effexor, I might not be able to get any work done, because I’d spend too much time making sure every line of code I write is properly lined up (and rewriting others’ code so it looks “right”). I have been doing this kind of thing for years. As a kid, I changed handwriting systems all the time, trying to find the “right” one. I’d go from writing bubbly and straight-up-and-down one day, to thin and right-slanted the next, to all caps, etc., etc. And I’d have to start over taking notes or whatever if I “messed up.” My teachers probably thought I was nuts.
I also have TTM>a?, which is sometimes considered part of the OCD “spectrum”, and I count letters in words when I’m bored. For instance, it took me about half a second to count the 17 letters in “Sarah of a Lesser God.” (I basically count letters in weird phonetic “chunks” — so yeah, I get the whole internal mathematical algorithm thing.)
Also, I’m considering pursuing a PhD in clinical psych b/c I’m so interested in studying impulse-control disorders — I just can’t decide if I’m more interested in treating them or understanding their origins. (I think I really need to be an M.D. or neuroscientist to do the latter, unfortunately.)
So, in conclusion…I understand exactly what you’re going through, and I loved reading your story — both as someone objectively fascinated by OCD and as an Internet friend. Sending you a hug and hoping you’ll let yourself sleep soon.
Ack, totally messed up the html there — sorry!
I’m not quite sure what to say, but I know what you feel sarah – sometimes the madness is in itself a comfort, and when it IS you, it’s a critical part of your identity, and as you said, you wouldn’t want to give it up any more than a limb. I hope you’re working with a therapist that can respect that. I’m in therapy for similar issues myself – an anxiety/depression cycle that can become crippling a few times a year. I wish you the best, and whatever happiness you can find.
You’ve been very brave to write about this. I can see that it was very difficult for you.
I confess that for me, whose brain works very differently from yours (although I did go through a phase for a couple of years where I copied all the official Morgan horse genealogies that I could find into notebooks, it wasn’t a constant thing, and I did stop), it is hard to understand why you choose not to accept treatment for some of your symptoms, I do fully recognize that it is your choice.
I completely support your right to make that choice. I also hope that you have the support that you do want from enough people (since often the flip side to this are overburdened, overstressed supporters like family members and friends).
@wondering: I should clarify and say that I choose not to take a specific drug that has mild effects on OCD and that I have taken in the past but with no real effect one way or the other. As for behavioral therapy, which I have tried on more than one occasion, I just find that the OCD is far too ingrained to really get much out of. And I do have a therapist, just one that is focused more on depression and eating disorders than OCD. But yes, I do feel like it’s part of my identity, which is a tough thing to wrap my head around.
@Kivrin: I never knew about that show! I can’t imagine I would really be of any use to it, since my stuff is so internal. And I am impressed with how fast you could count the letters in my screen name!
This was a very brave post. My sister in law is manic depressive and when i last saw her was in the middle of rapid cycling and like you she feels her manic episodes are part of her (she’s an artist and her best work comes out of the manic periods or when she stops her medication, it’s hard for her to make the decision regarding meds sometimes because when on them she has no desire to paint).
Anyway i have nothing of much use to say but hang in there.
Thank you so much for writing this… I know how difficult it can be to open up about diagnosed mental disorders.
I have Asperger’s Syndrome, which is on the Autism spectrum, and when I tell people this they often go straight to treating me like a little kid, despite the fact that I’m very clearly an adult and very clearly intelligent.
The worst reaction I think I’ve ever had is being told “Everyone seems to have something.” in a patronizing tone. I’m highly functional, but having my struggles and all of the stigmas I’ve had to put up with dismissed like that…as if I’m just looking for attention…
Let me put it this way: if I were to place a check next to everything you described or did. And that check represented that I too have done or experienced what you were writing about, about 90% of the post would be checked. I feel less alone when I read personal experiences like these. I have just gotten to the point in life where I can accept that if someone does not want to be my friend becuse of my mood swings and crippling axniety, that sometimes keeps me from leaving the house–even when I have a shopping date. I also so identify with your feelings about the endless therapy and medication changes that happen. I have twice thrown my hands up in the air, threw away my pills, cancelled my appointments, etc. I was in the psych ward 3 days later each time. So, I have resigned. My life will probably include the meds and therapy for it’s entirety. I am lucky to have the care that I have too.
Thank you for sharing this.
Wow. Thanks for posting your experience, sarah. I am pretty much entirely neurotypical, so I hope you won’t find this offensive, but: I find the description of your mathematical system fascinating. I don’t mean for one second to romanticize or fetishize the way your mind works. But I can’t help but appreciate the insight into a mind that works very differently from my own.
You’re very courageous, thanks for this post.
I know that was to share (understandably so), so I wanted to say thank you for sharing. I think stories like this are important to a. make mental illness more visible, b. allow others with mental illness to understand they are not alone, and c. allow those who have a loved one with a mental illness understand a little more.
My sister has a debilitating mental illness. While hers is much different from yours, I can’t help but think of her when I read this. I wonder if she feels her disease is part of who she is. Looking at her from the outside, all I can see is the opposite. Her disease seems like a monster that masks her personality. I’m really excited on the days where her own personality is so bright, it shines though, but I fear that one day the monster may take over completely. I can’t seem to reconcile that these two parts are one now (maybe that would be easier to reconcile if she didn’t have a completely different life before she was diagnosed).
Anyway, I’m sorry if I’m thread jacking, and I’m sorry if I offend in any way. I just wanted to say thank you for sharing and encourage you to continue sharing because it is very helpful.
Sarah, thank you for writing this. As a daughter of a mother who had crippling depression(she literally slept or drank away the last year of her life), and as a woman who does have sometimes crippling anxiety, I appreciate the share. I appreciate being reminded that I’m not the only one who has a fairly strict set of routines that make one feel in control.
@soalg: The show is very new — I think only two eps have aired so far. You should be able to watch at least one episode online if you’re interested! It may be morbid, but I just love hearing/seeing the different ways that OCD tendencies can manifest themselves. It’s so much more than the stereotypical handwashing! Oh, and yes, the letter counting thing is bizarre — I am impressed by your much more advanced system!
@MagneticCrow: It’s interesting, my mom always seems convinced I have Aspergers, probably because my OCD is far more extreme than most cases and can lead to me being very willfully isolated. (That said, I don’t believe I have Aspergers at all.) And yeah, I feel like there is not one single mental illness that has any broad degree of societal understanding/acceptance. The closest I can think of is Alzheimer’s, but that’s a stretch. Because my OCD is so internalized, most people don’t pick up on it (at least, I think that’s the case) so I guess I can be considered “high-functioning” in the way that you are. It’s a tough tightrope to navigate.
@Kivrin: If you give me ANY date in the past 100 years, I can tell you what day of the week it was.
Also, I figured out last week that a person’s 28th, 56th, and 84th birthdays will ALWAYS fall on the same day of the week as they were born.
*feels for you* I understand, except that my brand of OCD compels me to continue doing whatever I’m doing late into the night…I get completely immersed in activities and feel as if something terrible will happen whenever I stop. I’ve done the same thing, plying myself with caffeine so I can continue to beat back the night (which is sometimes accompanied by vivid nightmares I would do anything to avoid). It’s been ages since I’ve had a true manic episode, which I’m grateful for because they certainly compound the problem.
Do you find that your OCD peaks and ebbs according to the amount and degree of stressors in your life? Mine sure does.
Alyssa-
I was nodding my head while reading your comment. My sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia at an early age. In the beginning, I felt as you did: the disease made her a very different (often times horrifying) person. It’s been many years, many hospitalizations, MANY drugs, and many doctors since that initial diagnosis. She is the most stable she has ever been since her break, and the most happy. Yes, she is not the same person she was before. Yes, the disease has become a part of who she is. But she has finally been able to achieve a sense of peace with herself (a good drug regimen and a stable placement help a lot). In many ways I envy her ability to understand and love herself for exactly who she is. And we (her family) no longer think it terms of before schizophrenia and after schizophrenia. I hope you are able to come to a place of peace and reconciliation someday, too. I know how hard it is.
Sarah-
Thank you for this post. Anything that helps demystify and humanize mental illness makes the world a better place.
@tallgirl:
Thank you. My sister has paranoid schizophrenia, so it’s good to hear your experience with your sister. The biggest difference is that she had her break when she was 27. She is a compleatly different person now. I still see her old personality shine through, but I know she will never be the same- a fact that I’m still working out. The fact that we currently live in different cities and don’t see eachother very often complicates things. But I know this is my hangup and I have to come to terms with it without putting it on her. I know that whenever my parents die, I’ll be the one to look after my sister. I also know that schizophrenia is a genetic disease and there is a possibility that my daughter may grow up to have it, so I need to learn how to deal with it.
I’m sorry to make such long posts on a somewhat unrelated topic. But it helps me come to terms with my sister’s disease when I talk about it, so thank you all for indulging me thus far.
Alyssa-
My heart goes out to you. My sister had her break at 12 (!), and we struggled with the idea that she had so little of a “normal” life. That was many years ago, so I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with it. Nevertheless, I can easily recall how it felt to be in the middle of it, how hard it was to cope with watching someone you know and love morph into someone else before your eyes. Along the way, I’ve gradually redefined what I think of as “normal.” These days, I very rarely think anymore in terms of normalcy with respect to people, and it’s only opened my eyes to the great joy that can be found in someone’s unique personality and company (whether that uniqueness is caused by an illness or not). Also, I say this from personal experience, try not to be hard on yourself. I used to feel so guilty if I got angry or just plain sick of dealing with all of the things that come up. But as much as we ache for our loved ones, we’re human. I hope that in time, and with good care, your sister will stabilize. And I hope that you have a good support network.
@Alyssa @tallgirl: Totally NOT threadjacking. Like I said, this post is really for anyone who either has a loved one with one of these completely misunderstood disorders or has one of their own. I’m lucky to have a support network, but at times I really keep stuff hidden because I feel like they’ve been through enough with me.
Wow, Sarah- thanks so much for sharing this. I bipolar, and am also in a period of rapid-cycling. It’s so interesting to read how others experience this, because it feels so isolating. It’s not a feeling I’m able to explain to people who don’t have manic depression, which in turn makes me feel really lonely. Interestingly, I rewatch movies a lot too while manic- yesterday I watched Steel Magnolias and Kramer vs. Kramer, two very unhappy movies.
Except for the mania, I could have written this post. Well, except for the good writing too, but you get what I mean. I have googled “fear of sleep” so many times it’s not funny, but I never quite find exactly what I’m looking for. I’m not really a big movie watcher, but I read and do sudokus until I am literally too exhausted to be awake anymore. I am terrified of laying in bed, awake, having to be alone with my mind and heart racing, starting to panic. I can’t do it.
I had to leave school when I was hospitalized for depression a little over a year ago. I’ve since transferred, but the stress of that whole experience has made the obsessing about things a lot worse. I recovered from anorexia officially at 15, luckily, so I never had to deal with a clinical diagnosis of an eating disorder as an adult, but I’m struggling with eating properly again just because of everything else. It’s hard to explain to friends/family why you are exhausted/dizzy sometimes–what on earth do you say? It sounds crazy to say you haven’t slept in over 48 hours and have only had a small snack in as much time, so I lie, of course. But it still sucks.
Thanks for writing this. You’re not crazy. It really means a lot to me that you shared this.
Thank you for writing this. I have some inkling of how hard it must have been for you. One day in high school, my best friend since 6th grade came in with a bandage on her thumb. I asked her what she did to it and she said, in a very soft voice, that she had OCD and had picked away at that spot with her fingernail. That’s all she ever mentioned of it, and I’ve never asked further.
I don’t really know what I’m trying to say, except thank you for sharing, it means a lot.
@baraqiel: Oh, I do the same thing to my fingers. My knuckles are often bandaged and they’re permanently scarred and callused because I bite them until they bleed. It’s really my only physical OCD manifestation, and it’s called self-excoriation. It was hard to write, but I’m relieved I did it.
@NellMood: I fully cop to watching Titanic last night/this morning and crying like a wee bairn.
@swedishfishing: I’m so glad you got something out of this. I’ve never heard any technical term for fear of sleep. I completely understand that, though. So many things bleed into one another — anorexia, depression, OCD, refusal to sleep — and it’s impossible to know where one issue ends and the next begins.
As someone who is dealing with anxiety (possibly OCD, which runs in my family, but I’m not sure because I haven’t been diagnosed because I was scared to really talk to the doctor about it, heh), I totally understand that feeling of your rational mind knowing what you should do and the other part of your mind that you can’t control running wild.
I started sleeping with the lights and TV on when I was really anxious because I thought it would keep my scary or worrisome obsessive thoughts out of my head and I didn’t want to lie down without anything else to think about.
Thank you for sharing your experience! Talking about these things helps people dealing with them know that they’re not alone or just weird, and helps people who don’t have to deal with it understand.
@sarah: Obsessively watching movies that I know will make me cry is a tendency I don’t fully understand. I used to have a series of movies I had to watch while hypomanic, and I really couldn’t not watch them. I’ve sort of gotten past that, but I relapse. I’ll tell you, Steel Magnolias is not a good choice when you are on the cusp of depression.
I have OCD, anxiety issues, and I’m manic-depressive with rapid mood changes. I take meds, but I haven’t changed them in the 14 years I’ve been taking them, off and on.
But, I have to mention to SOALG that her calculation of birthdays at 5:14 on the 4th is incorrect if the person would be alive on a century date (1900, 2100)–except for 2000. The year 2000 was a leap year, but most century dates (I don’t know the actual term) are not. My OCD does not involve math, and I find it very interesting, but I thought I’d throw a wrench, or spanner, into the works on this one.
I think.
Thanks, Sarah. It takes guts to write so objectively about yourself, especially when you are in the grips of something.
I have OCD-like tendencies (although relatively mild) and have also struggled with anorexia. But I’m not screwed up, and neither are you–we’re imperfect human beings.
I can identify with isolating yourself, though. When I am struggling through something, I often try to pretend everything is ok until I can’t go on anymore, out of a fear of becoming a burden on others or pushing them away–which ultimately just makes things worse. I did something like that just this week and am kicking myself for it.
Gosh, life is complicated, isn’t it?
My younger brother has sever depression and OCD and we are not sure what else. It got to the point where he had to leave college and now he lives at home, afraid to leave the house. He has moments of intense anger and then will just collapse in on himself and sob. It is the most heartbreaking thing to see, and for whatever reason I am the only one who can calm him down. He fights sleep too, so when I can’t sleep, I will call him and sometimes that gets him to fall asleep since we will literally just talk until he conks out.
It’s hard because we are less than two years apart in age, and when we were younger we were inseparable. He followed me everywhere, but when the depression and the OCD started he was 12. He has a new therapist now who has gotten him to drive himself to see him every week (this is a huge development that my brother leaves the house)and I can even get my brother out to eat or a movie with me, but it’s a two-three hour process to get him out. Once he is out though, he is happy, and we have fun.
The other wrench is that he is literally a genius, like off the IQ charts smart. Some of his depression stems from that, and then it makes it worse. He sees what he is doing, he recognizes how difficult his life his because of it, but he can’t stop it. He may never live on his own, but I’ve started talking to him about moving out one day with me, it won’t be much, but the rest of my family really doesn’t have patience with him anymore, and I don’t live far from his therapist. We’ll see what happens.
Wow, I never get to talk about this since most people don’t understand, and I have health problems myself, and I feel silly when I complain compared to what my brother goes through every day. So thanks SOALG for posting this, I think you just made a lot of people feel a lot better.
@Josh: You may be my new best friend for giving me that piece of info! Seriously, I love stuff like that so I really appreciate it.
@masagoroll @betterfishtofry (love that name, btw) @endora: I am so happy that this helped y’all, even if just a little. It is a topic that I find is very rarely talked about when people discuss mental health issues. It’s not a “glamorous” topic like schizophrenia or anorexia, because OCD can seem very boring to people. Writing this post helped me a lot, and I’m glad it did so for others.
Thank you for this, Solag. I’m dating a man who has severe depression–runs in his family–and every once in while, I just feel like screaming at him to be “normal”, whatever the fuck *that* is.
Thanks for reminding me to be compassionate. Everyone bears a burden of one sort or another, and sometimes those burdens are necessary to the very humanity of the person who bears it.
(@Magnetic Crow: please know that this is in no way diminishing who you are or what you live with…)
Maybe we all have rituals to go through just to make life bearable. I count stairs in patterns of eight. My groceries have to be placed in my cart in symmetrical patterns.
I have to dance everyday, or I will shrivel.
The latter sounds “normal”, but what makes my drive to dance any different than my need to count stairs?
All that said–thank you, thanks to everyone in these comments for sharing–it’s good to know we’re not alone, non?
@sarah.of.a.lesser.god: I had no idea there was a name for non-cutting self-harm, or that it was a recognized symptom of a mental illness. I am a little too cowardly to be specific, but this is something I have done to varying degrees for many many years. I have a therapist and take some medication for anxiety and depression, and I know my tendency to pick is exacerbated when I’m stressed, but I had no idea it was, like, a real thing, with a clinical name. It’s… reassuring, I guess. Cheers.
@Penny_Esq: You might want to check out the trich.org website, too — it covers skin-picking as well as hair-pulling. *hug*
@Penny_Esq: I actually did not know the term for it until about 2 months ago. I bite the inside of my cheeks so badly that it’s a miracle they’ve never been seriously infected. It’s to the point where hot liquids hurt to have in my mouth. It was such a problem that I Googled it to find out what it’s really about and the cause.
Sarah, thank you for this beautiful post. And thanks to all the others who have shared their own experiences with mental illness.
Brave posts like this allow others without these direct experiences to have a glimpse into an inner world, and the impact of that cannot be overstated.
Thank you again; you are a wonderful writer.
I know this is an out of date thread, but I just found it from SALG’s post on depression.
Kivrin, thank you so much for sharing the letter-counting thing. I’ve done the same thing for as long as I can remember!! The few people I’ve told about it thought it was weird, so I haven’t talked to anyone about it in years and thought it was just me!
For me, I have to break up phrases I’ve read, names I’ve heard, or whatever else into equal-length groupings (with the groupings themselves typically of 5-9 letters), or alternating between 2 different lengths, of letters that use all the letters with no spares. I then will repeat those groupings over and over again in my head to a little beat, almost like a song. Sometimes it can be really distracting, while others times I catch myself doing it unawares.
For example, I would break up the title like this:
OneFle wovert heHarp y’sNes tanove rshare (counting the apostrophe but not the semicolon). Bonus points when my groupings break at the same point as words in the phrase (none here).
I could then have that rhythmic pattern stuck in my head for hours, like an annoying TV jingle.
For me, I think it started when I was studying for spelling bees back in elementary school (at least, that’s when I first noticed it). It really went ballistic when I took typing classes in junior high – then suddenly I was mentally typing all the letters on a keyboard at the same time.
I’ve done some numeric games like you describe, sarah – especially when I was dieting and calorie counting – but nothing this elaborate. Thanks for laying it out, it’s really neat to see how other people’s minds work.